CHA axes 30-day move out date for Cabrini building

By MEGAN COTTRELL, True/Slant (full story here)

Residents of 1230 N. Larrabee can stay in their homes – for now.

The Chicago Housing Authority has rescinded its order for 31 Cabrini-Green families to move out within 30 days in response to legal pressure from tenant lawyers and District Court judge William Hibbler.

All of Cabrini-Green’s development and demolition is governed by a legal agreement between the tenant council and their lawyers and the housing authority. The tenant council petitioned the judge, saying that the 30-day notice the CHA issued to residents in mid-May violated their agreements about how residents would move out.

Why? Well, according to motions put forth by the tenant’s lawyers, last fall, the CHA proposed closing down all four remaining Cabrini buildings the usual way – by giving residents 180 days to move out. But when the tenant leaders objected, it was decided that relocation would be voluntary – that CHA would give residents the option to move out if they wanted to.

So CHA seemed to find a new way to close the buildings instead – emergency closings.

“The CHA acted in bad faith when it failed to disclose to the LAC that the expected decrease in occupancy would automatically generate ‘emergency’ vacate notices, with no notice to the LAC,” reads the tenant council’s motion to Judge Hibbler.

“One can only assume that CHA’s push to negotiate a voluntary relocation plan with the LAC was intended to lay the groundwork to later justify its issuance of its ‘emergency’ vacate notices.”

As I’ve said before, it’s not an emergency if you plan for it. It’s happened time and again: you ask people to move out, so less and less people live in the building, and then all of the sudden – whoops! – emergency, we’ve got to close it down.

Of course, CHA has a tough job here. They’re the middleman between the present and the past. In order to build new replacement public housing units, they have to sell the condos that will sit next door. And, quite frankly, there’s a limit to the number of rich white folks that want to live next to a deteriorating public housing high rise filled with poor black folks. That may not be nice, but it’s the truth.

But emergency closings are not the answer. Why not at least consolidate buildings until replacement housing is built, like was done at Henry Horner? Emergency closings also violate the Relocation Rights Contract that governs all of Chicago’s public housing transformation. It allows for 180 day moves, and only emergency relocation in the case of unexpected problems – like flooding or fire damage. Not the slow accumulation of a problem over a year.

But even residents don’t have to move before the end of the month, 1230 N. Larrabee won’t be with us for much longer.

The CHA’s notice to residents tells them while they don’t have to move, they still can move if they’d like to.

“In making this decision, please consider the fact that it is likely that as a result of the current conditions, the low occupancy and the negative activity at the building, the building will close in the not too distant future.”

The writing’s on the wall for Cabrini-Green, that’s for sure. What’s left to be seen is who will prevail – the Chicago Housing Authority, who wants that end to come soon, or the residents, who are still hanging on.